Amédée Ozenfant: Purism

Amédée Ozenfant, 1921, Nature morte au verre de vin rouge (Still Life with Glass of Red Wine), oil on canvas, 50.6 x 61.2 cm, Kunstmuseum Basel (click photo for larger image)French artist Amédée Ozenfant (1886-1966) was once associated with the Cubism movement, but found himself in disagreement with the direction of the movement as time moved forward. 

Purism, referring to the arts, was a movement that took place between 1918 and 1925, and was led by Ozenfant and Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret) (1887-1965). It was a variation of Cubism, where objects were represented as elementary forms devoid of detail. The main concepts were presented in a book they wrote, Après le Cubisme (After Cubism), published in 1918.

Purism was an attempt to restore regularity in a war-torn France during hte post World War I era. Unlike what they saw as the “decorative fragmentation” of objects in Cubism, Purism proposed a style of painting where elements were simple and robust form, which also embraced technology and the machine.